sinucidere

Forms

sinucidere f (plural sinucideri)^[1]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of sinucide “to kill oneself”, used as a noun: from Romanian sinucide + -re.^[2][1][3][4] The verb is a Romanian compound of sine “oneself” and ucide “to kill”, made on the model of French se suicider.^[3][5][2] Pontbriant in 1862 already analysed the noun as the reflexive pronoun plus ucidere.^[6]

Scriban explains it as a rendering of French suicide, which he says was coined in the 18th century from Latin suī (“of oneself”) and the ending of occīdō (“to kill”), on the pattern of parricīdium.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and DLR date the first record to 1829, in a periodical passage about a man who had planned his crime together with his own suicide.^[2][8] The noun is thus recorded a few years before the verb sinucide, which MDA2 and Tiktin first find in Iordache Golescu's Condica limbii rumânești of about 1832.^[2][5] Tiktin's own first date for the noun is 1839.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed the act of taking one's own life.^[3][2] In the 1830s it competed with a learned coinage: DLR quotes a periodical text of 1830 that glosses sinucideri as “killed by themselves” and sets it against omucidere “killed by another”.^[8] The 19th-century dictionaries of Pontbriant, Costinescu and Barcianu all list it with French suicide and German Selbstmord.^[6][10][11] MDA2 records the bookish synonyms suicid and suicidere and an obsolete sinucid.^[2]

Timeline

• 1829 – first record, in a periodical.^[2][8]
• 1830 – sinucideri glossed “killed by themselves” beside omucidere.^[8]
• c. 1832 – the verb sinucide in Iordache Golescu's Condica.^[2][5]
• 1839 – Tiktin's first record of the noun.^[9]
• 1862 – in Pontbriant's dictionary, analysed as sine + ucidere.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. suicide: the act of killing oneself on purpose; the taking of one's own life.^[3][2][1]

Related words

• suicid
• ucide
• sine

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 900
3. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1023
4. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. sinucidere
5. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. sinucide
6. ^ a b c Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 680
7. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1206
8. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. sinucidere
9. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. sinucidere
10. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 523
11. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 588